Relativity
by fascimility
Summary: Hakkai thinks about how things have changed. Angst.


Disclaimer: I don't own anything. :)

Notes: And hour and a half, exactly. Hakkai thinks about how things have changed. Angst.Definitely not one of the best I've ever written. For tm challenge: Changer over time. Comments and criticism welcome.

_**Relativity**_

You know who you are.

You are Cho Hakkai, unflappable and placidly calm, taking things as they come with the same kind of ease with which you smile; except that now even you are not too sure if the smile has become a sort of talisman, a kind of defence against all that you refuse to see.

So when the journey was over you accepted it without any shock because it was something that had been waiting there all along even if when you started you held the firm belief that there would not be a journey back. No complaints, no regrets— you figured you could do at least that much.

When the monkey complained and the monk began to lapse into odd periods of silence, you just stood by and waited, because you knew it would all end someday, and before that day came, you could at least be there waiting, with a smile.

You made it back and for a moment everything felt strange, because you had become so used to sleeping in the open and travelling in a jeep that a warm comfortable bed and a real home seemed alien to you. Years of hard living had taken their toll on you, in the mental sense. You are sure you are stronger, and faster, but colder too, because you have long learned that you cannot be caring for everything.

But you still try.

When Gojyo offered his hand, you accepted it with at least a smile, if not gratitude, and managed to convince yourself in that instant that it was a decision that you would not come to regret when the time had worn down what platitudes still remained as a barrier between the both of you.

You need not have accepted; you knew that and so did he, and even the monk could tell. But you went ahead and moved into the apartment anyway, bringing what little you really owned in a small carrier bag. There were much more you could have owned if you wished to, but the little voice you named instinct cut in at the last moment, and you left without the other more personal items you were convinced belonged more to Gonou than Hakkai. There was no sense in keeping things that were not yours.

There would have been a time where you would keep these things because you were sentimental, and emotions still meant more than logic to you. You would have kept them for precisely the same reason you were now throwing them out; little things like pictures, mementos of a time long past.

So moved into Goyjo's apartment, no, your apartment, and soon settled into a routine that you used to follow, but had become something you dreaded and hated as the days grew longer and the nights even more so. You couldn't really tell what had changed; because as far as you were concerned things had always been this way before you went on the journey, but there was something nagging at the back of your head even as you tried to use domestic bliss to justify the boredom that was soon getting the better of your temper. You tried not to show it, least of all to Gojyo, because you were living in his house after all and it had been your choice to make that decision.

Many a time you found yourself explaining to Gojyo the need for buying new cups because they were old and cracked and you had accidentally let slip a few when doing the washing, and he had laughed, telling you in that light-hearted voice of his how you should have been more careful. You got new cups, but it still didn't change anything, and you have long since learned how to be more controlled.

Things that never used to bother you now become the main causes of your irritation; his habit of leaving cigarette butts all over the floor, never doing the dishes, never even cooking, not doing the laundry, and so many other things you cannot even recall. To be fair he does try to cook sometimes, when he comes home early or when you're not around, and you shouldn't fault him for that, but it irks you that he never even tried to learn.

This morning you found a cigarette butt on the newly washed floor and it sent you into a frenzy, because you just scrubbed and waxed it and it was a beautiful pine colour just an hour before. Then you got annoyed because he didn't even give a second thought, and that reminded you of the reason why you never got the apartment carpeted, despite having toyed with the idea for a long time.

To start on the laundry was to give you a splitting headache that was sure to last for the entire day, because even the strongest detergent you could find didn't get rid of the smell in spite of repeated washings, and the traces of the odious cheap perfume lingered on faintly, like the sickly sweet scent of rotting jasmine flowers in the summer heat.

Sure, you were grateful that he went to the pub and took back the winnings—after all they were the money you bought the groceries and sundries with—but there came a point where it began to wear down on your nerves and raise your ire. You never said anything, of course. But you could think of at least ten reasons why if they really wanted money you should he the one going, since it was openly acknowledged that between the both of them you had better luck, or skill, or both. And that since he was only there to gamble, drinking so excessively that he could only stumble home, and playing with women wasn't really part of the deal.

You acknowledge that the last point cut you deeper than just that. It surprised you that it had never bothered you before; him going to get drunk and flirting with every woman in the bar, married or unmarried, and bedding them after. You guessed that perhaps last time you were just glad for a place to stay and someone to be with; someone who asked no questions and just laughed without thinking, and someone to share the rainy nights with.

And then you began to think when it was that you began to stop giving so freely and become aware of how nowadays he was seldom at home anymore, especially on the nights where the clouds bunched up on the horizon in great clusters, and how you convinced yourself that you no longer needed anyone when the rain poured down in torrents that threatened to open more floodgates than one.

Once, loneliness drove you to walk through the rain without an umbrella because you didn't own one, and the only mackintosh had been taken by him when he went out earlier. You were bringing his dinner in a tin container, the food still warm from the fire and shielded from the rain by your coat, and you reached the pub where you knew he would be, only to see him flushed with drink and surrounded by a bevy of girls you felt were wearing only half of what they should have been. It was then that you stood at the entrance, momentarily lost and unsure, a dripping statue frozen with cold and pelted by the rain, gripping the container and watching him animated and seductive in the warmth of the bar.

Then it hit you in a flash; the realisation that he would never even come as close to happiness closeted at home by your side, and that all you could have done for him had already been done. If you were worth only that much, then so be it, because that would forever be what you were worth.

That night, when you turned and ran back through the darkness, the rain no longer mattered and cold no longer cut, because rainy nights had become the old friend you were returning to; its bitterness and solitude respite from the pain in your heart. You threw the food away, in the end. That was the first time you didn't stay up to wait for him.

And you needn't have, anyway. He didn't come back till late morning, serious and oddly sober, and if you didn't know him better you would have said he was suffering from a hangover. He sat you down at the table and ran his fingers through his hair, looking you in the eye and saying that he was sorry in a voice that touched something in your heart, because you were convinced that if nothing else; at least this thing was still the same as you remembered. You smiled at him and said that it was alright, because you already found it in your heart to understand that it was not your place to dictate his life or his choices. That day he caught a cold, and you stayed at home nursing him, watching him through the night as he slept.

The days past, marching past impossibly tedious with each hour growing longer, and all you can do is find more dirt to sweep or more dust to clean, because you know that at least you can do that. He brings home less money now, so it's become difficult to come up with the same standard of cooking with a lot less ingredients, and lately, even coming up with the same amount of food at the dinner table has become a challenge. You wonder where the money's going, but you don't ask, because you already know that lady luck is fickle.

So you stay with Gojyo and pretend that everything is fine, wearing the smile that has seen you through so much and will see you past much more, because it's the magic talisman that will protect you wherever you go. When you meet one afternoon over tea with Sanzo you find that you still can talk amicably and fill in the silence as you were once able to do, and that pleases you. He is still the same, grumpy and unapproachable as he was, but you can see beyond that that he is genuinely pleased to see, as you are to see him.

You remark that he is still the same as ever and he is wry, placing down his paper and looking you straight in the eye, asking you impatiently what you really want to say. You were mildly shocked then, because you were not aware that he could read you so well—or perhaps you had become more blatant—and just cocked your head to one side and smiled, saying that a lot had changed and you were just pleasantly surprised that at least he had remained the same over the years. 

And all Sanzo had done was to return to his newspaper and mutter in a voice so small you almost missed it that perhaps it had been you who had changed, not anything else. You stuttered, looked at your watch and made a feeble excuse about having to get home to get dinner, unable to take the sting in that remark.

That night you packed and left, with nothing but a note apologising to Gojyo for the abrupt departure and expressing thanks for sharing many a happier day past. It was cruel, you knew, because then he wouldn't have anyone to clean up or take care of him, but then you figured that if he really needed that he should have got a wife to start with, not made do with someone who only barely passed as a roomate. Through your bitterness you understood that this was for the best, that with this at least you weren't holding him back any longer and he no longer had any obligation, so he could be what he had always been, wild and free.

And you left, taking what belonged to you this time in an even smaller carrier bag, because this time you couldn't bring yourself to take more than the absolutely necessary, and even then you still left some behind.

You realise that you probably owe Gojyo more than this, but it's the best that you can do.

What you leave behind is what you cannot take along, because intertwined in your memory are fragments of a time where things were still happy, and you can't help but reminisce every time you see yourself in the odd mirror. The features are still there, perhaps a little harder, a little sharper, and the smile growing thinner each day.

You sit down and rake your hands through your hair, unsure of what you know about yourself anymore.

And you cry, because it is you who has changed.

The End  
09/10/2004


End file.
